Tips for Art, Crafts, and Drawing YouTubers — Stan Prokopenko Interview

hey what's up guys I'm sitting here with

Stan who has an art YouTube channel with

over half a million subscribers and so

in this video we're talking all about

how to grow your YouTube channel as an

artist as well as multiple ways of

monetizing your creativity coming up hey

what's up guys sean here with video

influencers help you build your

influence income and impact with online

video and I'm sitting here with Stan

from the YouTube channel proko an artist

a fine arts painter as well as a teacher

on YouTube how's it going

great we're here at VidCon and you've

got an incredible channel that teaches

people how to draw better I do a lot of

things last time we learned the easiest

makes the back wall the neck you see a

lot of compression in the trapezius at

the top try to fix your mistakes the way

I look at the way like I became a

YouTube youtuber is there's like six

things in my life and from my childhood

that kind of all came together and

created my youtube channel so when I was

a young kid I would I like to make

videos with my my cousin we would

recreate home alone James Bond just

messing around with cameras and stuff I

also like to program things my dad gave

me a bunch of programming books and I

would just sit on my computer all day

coding games and stuff and then I like

to draw just doodle around in high

school got into animation then I started

teaching in an art school and then I got

into business just kind of trying out

random stuff like creating scrubs for

nurses promoting nightclubs just

creating random businesses that all kind

of failed but they failed because I

wasn't doing what I liked and when I

finally did combined all those six

things from my childhood into proko yeah

which is you know filmmaking teaching

drawing coding all that stuff combined

it blew up because it was something I

was actually passionate about

Wow Wow well that's a huge like there's

so many Nuggets just in that story right

there

about taking all these elements

throughout your life and that YouTube

gives you a place in a platform to

really share that with the world right

that's amazing that's amazing

now specifically when did you start on

YouTube about four years ago and when

you started how did you you were just

ready I mean what was your strategy

going into it your content schedule

those types of things I didn't have too

much of a strategy at that time I

already had a blog with tutorials so I

was you know I already had a little bit

of experience teaching and I was trying

to figure out with my blog I was trying

to figure out how to you know take these

complex topics and simple foot simplify

it down to you know make it really easy

for people to understand and the blogs

became popular and then I kind of

discovered YouTube and video and I just

started experimenting with it and I took

my blogs and I converted them to video

form yeah and those performed a lot

better than my blogs and so I just stuck

with I just went full full-on into the

videos that's that's cool and now your

channel is definitely groans really

influential you have a lot of highly

viewed videos there are definitely

youtubers out there that are try to

figure out better artists and maybe

they're you know they're painters

themselves or maybe they're doing

animation and maybe they want to even

grow their art career what do you think

your biggest tips would be specifically

for artists on YouTube to grow their

influence well yeah there's a lot of

things so number one you have to be good

so if you're not standing out asn't with

the quality of your work you got to make

sure that you're always practicing and

trying to improve I mean even if you are

good continue practicing trying to

improve network with people like when I

launched my YouTube channel like I said

I had my blog and there were a few

pretty popular artists that were

following me and when I posted my very

first video they liked the quality of my

video and it was different from what was

being posted at the time and they shared

that video and in the first day I got a

few thousand views the very first video

yeah and so the quality

just just um you know improving your

skills and it really stands out that's

huge so number one quality and then what

would you say as far as artists though

that maybe they want to focus all in the

art but but don't want to focus on

business or like the marketing side of

you - yeah or where they get those what

are those tips to learn that stuff well

your YouTube channel of course yes video

influencer right here no but um I think

that initially focusing on figuring out

who you are and doing what you want to

do and again the quality is going to be

the best way to market your stuff

because people will share good good

quality it's good then once you kind of

got that growth then you start perfect

perfecting it with by watching YouTube

channels like yours reading books you

know following people like Gary Vee and

just really perfecting your craft but

when you're starting out I'd say quality

is content is king right on time so good

so good now one of the things that is

funny it's it's the cliche and people

say about artists is they call them

usually oh you're a starving artist

right because usually you want to paint

you want to draw you want to share your

music whatever and so for artists at

monetization like figuring out how to

even potentially create multiple income

streams or even verticals is so critical

and I know for definitely influencers

watching this space they maybe just want

to sell their art or maybe they do want

to teach art but figuring out multiple

ways what of the ways you've kind of

learned what are the ways you're

implementing what kind of tips would you

you know encourage artists for

monetizing in multiple ways to

potentially turn their creativity into a

career yeah so there's always new

platforms coming out and so just being

on top of it is good right now things

like patreon are popping out a lot of

artists are taking advantage of that

where you know you create a patreon page

and other artists for people that follow

you they just they give you money to

produce because they like what you do

and people are making thousands of

dollars a month from patreon alone

but like I don't use patreon mostly I I

sell from my website premium content yep

and I use YouTube as a way to kind of

push people to my website okay

so I'll release shorter versions of my

premium content on YouTube and I'll tell

people hey if you want more go to

proko.com/anatomy

yeah so you're pushing people to you

know purchase products

there's also advertising but that I

don't like YouTube at used to add but

that's like such a small part of

monetizing let's see and so for that

educational content to some artists are

you know they just are creating their

work would you encourage them to teach

and how would they figure out how to do

that stuff to do tutorials like if

they're just creators and they want to

sell their art when with how it will be

the decision you know how would they

know if it's right for them to maybe

shift into then the how to of yeah well

you got to figure out if you have a

passion to teach okay yeah

some people don't like teaching and then

don't I mean I I started teaching at a

school before I started YouTube and I

loved it I mean I love the interaction

with the students I loved helping people

grow and so I just knew that I liked to

teach and and that was really natural

for me got um so just try it like if you

don't know try it out if you hate it and

stop teaching yeah I spoke Ahsan making

good art and if people follow you for

your art that's awesome yeah now social

media platforms definitely you have

YouTube but as an artist what do you

think are the must utilize social media

platforms and what are your favorites

YouTube my number one I considered a

social network yep Facebook right now

I'm really enjoying snapchat yeah

I don't I don't think I'm really

monetizing snapchat but I'm just really

enjoying it

I don't know where it's going to lead

but anyway Instagram Twitter I'm not

sure about yeah I don't I don't know

sure sure but yeah at the top tier like

Facebook and YouTube for me are you

ready for the lightning round

there was three two and one talking or

texting talking cat or dog dog book

every influencer should read mastery by

Robert Greene hmm

you like that one 48 laws of power

mastery the other one if you could only

have one item in a zombie apocalypse

what would it be a pencil that's a good

or a pencil no probably not that would

that would die very quickly a machete no

not a machete a sword a sword along like

a ninja sword yeah katana yes Mike

Michonne yeah because I mean she's a lot

he's dead yes favorite place in the

whole wide world Hawaii I got married

there nice it's great place

kawaii especially your biggest

inspiration when you're facing creative

block I just get to work you know okay

you just hustle

just start working and then I get

inspired as I'm working you're like

screw inspiration yeah do it go for a

run or something and just get to work

last thing you grabbed out of the fridge

probably bottled water last song you had

a repeat flume

that's vibes flume dives

hey lady dance the bloom I don't know

what are you most grateful for right now

my family my wife my my kids my dogs is

my family they bring me a lot of

happiness right now awesome I'm also

very grateful for my parents because

they uh they're very supportive when I

was a kid

lightning round over where can people

find you what other social network so

what kind of stuff do you have coming up

that people should check out

I'm working on my anatomy course right

now teaching artists about the human

body surface anatomy not like organs and

stuff like that how to draw the human

body like if you want about superheroes

or something got another Anatomy yeah

working on some more personal things

like just sketching going around town

and more like loose things because a lot

of my content is very very educational

and yeah I think I need to just kind of

let people in on my life it's cool

that's cool and your social networks

will be most active um follow you at

will link it up in the description below

but the handles uh all of my handles are

Stan Prokopenko you will put it up yeah

you can

good luck spelling it love it love it

thank you so much for being on

appreciate it very much

you got it great so in this video three

two one so in this video okay hey guys

okay I'm ready 32 what your creativity

we are creativity so in this video I

interview Stan Prokopenko panco